SEATTLE — The buzz started midday Friday when Wyoming senior Larry Nance Jr. sparked a second-half run in the first game of the day, giving the crowd brief hope that the Cowboys could start the day with an upset of Northern Iowa. A couple hours later, the excitement reached a full crescendo as an arena full of fans, many of whom probably didn’t know a week ago that UC Irvine had a basketball team, let alone one that was in the NCAA tournament, became huge UCI fans as the 13th-seeded Anteaters nearly knocked off No. 4 seed Louisville.
Iowa vs. Davidson didn’t provide many thrills — the Hawkeyes were in control for most of the game — but KeyArena was loud and full nonetheless with a sellout crowd of 14,852 attending the evening session of games.
Then, of course, when Gonzaga hosted North Dakota State in the nightcap — OK, technically this was a neutral site, but it sure felt at times like KeyArena was Spokane West for a couple hours — the building was rocking and rolling in a way that, aside from the occasional Pearl Jam concert, it hasn’t in seven years. And even a largely pro-Gonzaga crowd couldn’t help but get fired up at Dexter Werner’s unlikely second-half heroics for North Dakota State, with the reserve forward scoring 13 points in the final 12 minutes of the game to keep the Bison close.
So, NBA, were you paying attention? More importantly, were you listening? Because it was loud.
In case anyone needed a reminder — and four decades of Sonics support says no one should — the first NCAA tournament games in Seattle since 2004 showed once again what a good basketball town this can be.
KeyArena was mostly full on a weekday morning for Wyoming and Northern Iowa, hardly big draws by any stretch of the imagination, and the building was electric by the time Louisville and UC Irvine tipped off.
A quick walk around lower Queen Anne between the early and late sessions of games revealed packed bars and restaurants, and with Kevin Calabro seated at center court for the radio call, it felt just like the old pre-Oklahoma-City-heist days, though it also served as also a cruel reminder of the kind of excitement basketball fans should be able to experience in this building a lot more regularly. And yes, there’s a difference between being a region that will turn out for a big event and being a basketball town, but the Seattle area is most definitely both, which we saw on Friday.
But I won’t spend too much time of this, because skewering the NBA deserves its own column, and the focus should instead be on what was a tremendous atmosphere for four games, and what promises to be another great day of basketball Sunday, especially with Gonzaga moving on to face an Iowa squad that should provide a very big test.
The NCAA tournament hasn’t passed through Seattle in more than a decade, but Friday’s electric atmosphere, and the excellent hosting job by the very helpful University of Washington staff, should be more than enough to make this a regular stop in the NCAA’s rotation.
“Man, has it been that long?” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said when asked about the NCAA tournament returning to Seattle. “That’s too bad, because this is a great city. This was a great city for a Final Four. It’s been unbelievable to see the fans downtown recognizing the guys, supporting all of us and obviously the noise level in there was something that was special, and actually got us going a little bit. … It’s a fabulous place, not only for a first and second round, but also a regional final too.”
And it wasn’t that Friday was great because it featured a bunch of classics, or any upsets, but rather because the combination of just enough excitement and a great audience were enough to keep KeyArena energized for more than eight hours of hoops. Fifth-seeded Northern Iowa was in control most of the night, but Wyoming’s brief comeback attempt, led by five straight field goals by Nance Jr., was enough to send the first jolt of energy into the building.
In the most exciting game of the day, Louisville and UC Irvine didn’t trade buckets in a high-scoring shootout, but the game was close throughout, and in one of those moments that makes the early rounds of the tournament so great, what started as a mostly neutral crowd became more and more pro-Anteaters as the game went on, particularly every time 7-foot-6 center Mamadou Ndiaye touched the ball.
“During points of the game when we were going back and forth with Louisville, whenever we got a basket or a good defensive play, we could hear the crowd just erupt,” senior forward Will Davis II said. “It’s always good just to have the crowd behind us, especially in our first NCAA tournament game.”
Even the plucky North Dakota State Bison made things interesting against second-seeded Gonzaga, swaying some of the neutral fan when they quickly trimmed an 18-point Bulldogs lead down to a six-point margin midway through the second half, then again when unlikely hero Werner, who looks more like a high school offensive lineman than an NCAA Tournament star, led another run to again cut Gonzaga’s lead to six.
In both cases, however, Gonzaga came up with big plays to halt the Bison comebacks, and eventually won comfortably, 86-76. Nonetheless, Werner had achieved sort of a cult-hero status by the end of the day for his many unorthodox buckets that looked like moves you might see at your weekly rec-league game.
“I told coach that’s how we practice it; I trip on a guy’s foot and fade away and bank it in,” said Werner, who averages eight points per game but finished with a team-high 22 on Friday. “You know, sometimes you got to keep it going.”
There were no Cinderella stories on Sunday, no buzzer beaters, and only one down-to-the-wire game, but there enough exciting moments for this basketball-loving region to keep the Key rocking all day long.
Hopefully the NCAA, and yes, the NBA, were paying attention. In the short term, this region deserves more chances to host tournament games, and eventually, a Seattle arena should be rocking 41-plus nights a year.
Herald Columnist John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com
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